Teens burned, one critically, after pouring gasoline on grill

Peter Hermann, The Baltimore Sun

A 17-year-old Baltimore County girl was in critical condition Thursday, severely burned over half her body, after someone poured gasoline over burning embers in a grill that then exploded, fire officials say.

Two other teens — another 17-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy — were also injured in the fire about 9 p.m. Wednesday outside a house in the 6000 block of Shady Spring Ave. in Rosedale, near Interstate 95 and the Baltimore Beltway.

Baltimore County Fire Capt. Ross Cooke, a department spokesman, said the most severely injured victim is a 17-year-old girl who suffered burns from her waist up and was in critical but stable condition Thursday at the burn center at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Another teen was in fair condition at the burn center, and a third was treated at the emergency room at the same hospital and released, according to Cooke. The names of the victims were not released.

Cooke said a group of teens was outside and had "a little campfire" with twigs and branches in a grill but wanted more intense flames. "The fire wasn't burning quite well enough," Cooke said. "What they did was something stupid — they put gasoline on the fire. It exploded. They were good kids out having a good time, and they did something crazy."

A person who answered the phone at the house said no one wanted to talk about what happened.

Cooke said some parents were "where the incident happened and [were] monitoring the situation." The captain said that "quick action by the father prevented a bad situation from getting worse."